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Wednesday, 17 June 2015

The Blog Fantastic 036: Elantris Review (Unread 011)

I don’t read as
many books as I would like to, especially in certain genres. There’s too little
time to get around to everything that interests me. Because of that, sometimes
I try a book by an author who has caught my attention only to be disappointed by
the sample of their work. It sucks when that happens, and it happens regularly.
That’s why I’m thrilled when I discover a writer whose work I really enjoy,
especially when that other has plenty more books to offer and all of their
books are readily available. For me, Brandon Sanderson has become one of those
writers in the last two years or so. I’ve known of him since he was handpicked
to finish writing Robert Jordan’s The
Wheel of Time, but I only got around to giving one of his books a try until
a couple years ago. Since then, I’ve been enjoying him work. I still have
plenty of his books to read (he writes at superhuman speeds) which means I’ll
have several more Sanderson reviews to write in the future.

Elantris is the most recent book by Sanderson that I’ve read. I enjoyed it, but
not as much as I enjoyed Warbreaker and
The Emperor’s Soul. The novel is
Sanderson’s first published work, though not the first book he’s written. As
his first published book it’s certainly something to be proud of because there
are loads of really good things about it. One of those things is the prologue
which instantly grabs the reader and sucks them into the world of Elantris. The setup is pretty simple.
There once was a city of gods. It was a city filled with magic and limitless
possibilities. A few decades ago that city died and all its gods became
decrepit wretches, now living a cursed life. This event was called the Reod,
the fall of the gods. Still, the city lives on in a way because the magic that
chose people among the populace of the surrounding cities to become gods in the
famed city of Elantris continues to work. Though now, the Shaod (the Transformation)
is no longer a blessing, it’s a sentence to a miserable new life.

Forward to the
present day, we begin our story with prince Raoden who wakes up to discover
he’s been cursed with the Shaod. He’s immediately brought to the city of
Elantris where he will spend the remainder of his days to rot. Only he chooses
to keep himself busy and he begins uncovering the secrets of the Reod.

It’s a great setup.
The introduction of the Reod and several other unique fantasy ideas is what
made Elantris an enjoyable read. It’s
not the only good thing about the book, just one of my favourite parts of it.
Sanderson spreads his ideas in three distinct categories of chapters, separated
by the point of view character used in each chapter. The book has a pretty
rigid structure for most of its length in which each of the three main
characters has a chapter in their point of view and they appear in the same
order: Raoden, Sarene, and Hrathen.

The Raoden
chapters were immediately my favourite. His story is directly tied to that of
the city of Elantris. His role in the book is to uncover the mystery of the
Reod and because this is a book by Brandon Sanderson, that also means
uncovering the magic called AonDor. He’s proactive and it’s easy to like him
because of that. Each chapter that focused on him had at least one really
interesting moment that helped to propel the plot, provided answers regarding
the book’s many mysterious elements, and developed characters in engaging ways.
Sometimes a chapter managed to do all these things in addition to adding some
action scenes.

Sarene’s chapters
were also quite good. I didn’t really like them initially because they were
designed to have a slow build compared to the quick and surprising twists in
Raoden’s early chapters. Over time, I began to really like her and she rivals
Raoden as far as good characterization goes. Her portion of the story focused
on the political, economic, and diplomatic portion of the book. She’s rather
headstrong and focused. It’s a pleasure to see her navigate the wealthy and
influential members of society in the capital city of Arelon. Sanderson has her
fail a few times and it added some realism to Sarene’s other accomplishments
and struggles. Unfortunately, her story doesn’t build to much as it’s entirely
in service of other people, principally Raoden once the final third of the book
kicks the plot into high gear. It’s one of the elements in the third act that I
didn’t like.

The third point
of view character is Hrathen, a religious leader of the most powerful nation on
the continent of Opelon, where the nations of Arelon and the city of Elantris
are located. His portion of the book focuses on the religious and the spiritual
aspects of the story. His job is to convert all of Arelon to the religion of
Derethi in only three months’ time. His chapters were a chore to read. I really
disliked him as a character and his involvement in the plot seemed forced. He’s
supposed to be one of the main antagonists but he really doesn’t show it. He’s
supposed to be a very capable, independent, and powerful man but he’s
constantly undermine but other people. This includes people who are presented
to us by the narrator as being less intelligent and less resourceful than
Hrathen. He’s a hollow threat and its made worst by the fact that Sanderson
repeatedly tries to convince the reader that Hrathen really is threatening and
powerful. He’s my least favourite character in any book by Sanderson, so far.

For most of the
book’s duration, Sanderson sticks to the three chapter segments faithfully. The
first small break comes in just past the halfway point. Near the end of the
book, the structure is almost completely put aside. I really don’t know what
the exact point of this structure was. It seemed to increase the
compartmentalization of the book’s segments: Raoden (magic and mystery), Sarene
(politics and economics), and Hrathen (religion and war). This increased my unhappiness
of having to read any new Hrathen chapters. I was very annoyed that I had to
read more about Hrathen before I could get back to Raoden and Sarene. I would
even count the pages of Hrathen’s chapters to make sure they weren’t longer
than those of the other characters. I wish there was a good reason for this
split because it seems really arbitrary and it doesn’t serve any person that I
can identify. My inability to figure out its reason for being simply adds to my
irritation with Hrathen because it guaranteed I’d see him again every third
chapter.

There are other
things that don’t work for me besides Hrathen and Sarene’s diminished role in
the book’s climactic chapters. Those two additional elements are the magic
system of AonDor and the book’s final third. AonDor to put it simply is a form
of rune magic. It really doesn’t work for me, even though I’m a fan of some
rune magic (the rune magic from Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Death Gate Cycle comes to mind). Usually
there is a certain simplicity to rune magic but Sanderson being who he is goes
all the way and tries to make it more complex. That’s where he loses me. To effectively
use the power of AonDor, a user needs to first form the rune and then add
details to it to specify what they want to do. When using the healing Aon (or
rune), the user needs to add details to specify which part of the body needs
healing and which type of healing is required based on the wound. This is
pretty ridiculous considering some of the Aons are already very complex in
their base form. It also causes me to suspend my disbelief with magic when I
consider just how quickly Raoden traces his runes. It’s impossible to imagine
him doing it successfully when such detail and precision is required. Those details
really are a required when using the magic and Sanderson proves this by explaining
what happens when a rune isn’t drawn correctly (nothing good, obviously).

Essentially,
Sanderson spends hundreds of pages describing and unveiling a complex magic
system that is difficult to master even though it’s based on simple ideas, that
of illustrating lines into patterns in order to release and shape magic. It’s
nice in theory, but his application of the magic late in the story makes it all
pretty ludicrous. Raoden, who barely just unlocked some of the mysteries
surrounding the rune magic, efficiently uses it to wield battle against enemies
and do other incredible feats little effort. It just doesn’t work for me
because I was led to believe it’s a difficult magic system but it’s
paradoxically easy to use. I also can’t get over how much time it would take to
correctly draw the runes while under the stress of a battle, particularly when fighting
other magic users as is the case with Raoden.

I mentioned
another problem with the end of the book. Sarene who is independent and
sharp-witted gets reduced to a damsel in distress. Enough said about that. I’m
still trying to forget it ever happened.

Elantris does succeed quite nicely in other areas, particularly in the world
building. Sanderson takes several ideas worth developing and applies them to a
multilayered and believable fantasy world. I really like the way that something
like the Reod, the fall of the gods, could radically change the world in which
the story takes place. It’s detailed and engaging. It’s also refreshing to see
that everything is connected, from the social to the theological to the
political. The connections are simplified compared to our real world standards
but for a something that is fully realised in one person’s head this is top
notch world building. The geography of the world is also important to a degree.
Even with his first published novel Sanderson presents himself as a writer that
truly thinks about the ideas present in his book.

What I like about
Sanderson as an author is that he’s not satisfied with planting an interesting
idea in his fiction, he develops it and he thinks about how it would impact the
world beyond the obvious reaction you would have to the initial idea. Likewise
he doesn’t provide you with info dump in the traditional sense. It’s there,
certainly, but in digestible doses. He spreads it out throughout the story. He
ties the info dump to the narrative and to the plot. Actually, he uses the how
and why of the elements unique to his work (the Shaod, the Reod, Elantris, Aon
ruins, etc.) as mystery elements to the plot. How things work and how things
connect and influence characters, the setting, and the narrative are the
driving force of Elantris. He’s very
scientific in his approach to Elantris,
even when he’s dealing with religion (which pops up often in this book).
Inquisitive readers are likely to enjoy this book because even when the narrative
builds slowly they will have enough interest invested in the world building and
how it connects to the story, keeping the pages turning. Readers who want
traditional fantasy characters or fluid and impressive prose will likely have
trouble understanding why some readers really enjoyed this book and the level
of detail and exposition presented in the world building of this novel.

The book starts
really slowly. It’s a good thing the short prologue hooks you with an interesting
premise because it takes Sanderson a couple hundred pages to really show the
reader the implications of the events described in the prologue. He builds on
it, piece by piece, and it eventually leads to some really interesting concepts
and a well-executed delivery but you have to be patient. . . and you will have to read about Hrathen a
lot more than you will want to. Ultimately though, the build-up doesn’t pay off
nearly as well as I had hoped. The ending is rushed almost as if giving the
writing a sense of urgency will give the story additional weight and further
elevate the importance of the climax. I was left disappointed that everything
gets wrapped up so neatly and that the characters changed so radically from
their portrayals earlier in the book. There was plenty of growth for the main
characters overall, but their actions in the last few chapters feel as if
they’re being done by different people than those I was reading about in the first
two thirds of the novel.

I’ve only read
three works by Sanderson, two novels and one novella. Already I can see a clear
pattern for how his stories are constructed and Sanderson is definitively not
the kind of author who works based on instinct. He’s a planner, he writes an
outline. It’s not to say he doesn’t deviate from his outline and his notes, I’m
sure he does, but for the most part he thinks and plans what he’ll be writing
and how different ideas interact with other ideas. He builds the story starting
with ideas rather than say, character or plot. This is not a criticism, just an
observation. So far, I can expect a detailed magic system that is connected in
some way with the social, religious, political or even geographical setting of
the story. In fact, it’s likely that all of these elements will be connected by
the time the story ends. My biggest complaints about this book are the Hrathen
chapters, he’s insufferable and according to Sanderson’s annotations for Elantrison his website he’s
rather fond of the character which just makes it worst for me. I dislike the
use of rune magic as it’s portrayed in Elantris.
The story’s build-up really is the high point for me. I particularly loved the
scenes set in Elantris and I really liked Raoden and Sarene. I wish we would
have gotten more romance between the two, especially considering they’re
married. I also liked some of the minor characters quite a bit. This book had a
lot of potential and I got a lot of enjoyment out of the build-up but
ultimately the destination wasn’t nearly as interesting as the journey there
and I wish this book had a significantly different ending. There have been
mentions of a possible sequel to Elantris
and hopefully that book, if it’s ever written and published, will answer some
of the problems I had with it.

It’s a very good
debut. Sanderson loves to recount the story of how he became a professional
author. It’s well documented that Elantris
is the sixth full novel he’s written and it became his first published work. It
shows in the prose and in the way the ideas converge, but it’s still a good
book. I would definitively recommend it to readers of the fantasy genre who
don’t want to read yet another book with knights, dragons, or a story set in a
medieval setting. It’s a rewarding book in part because of how refreshing it’s
world-building and the characters are. Oddly enough, its magic system is
unimpressive and that’s quite odd considering Sanderson’s affinity for
developing good magic systems.

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Shared Universe Reviews

Welcome to my blog. I like to write about comics, books, movies and more. Feel free to comment and share you thoughts. If you'd like me to review a comic or if you're interested in an interview, send me an e-mail at mario.jf.lebel@gmail.com.